Welcome to All As We Launch Our Midwifery Care Associates Blog

“Fill the mother’s cup to the brim, so she will have what she needs to pour out to her baby.”

I was walking down a sweeping glass staircase in the open atrium of the hotel. It was 1988, and I was a student midwife, at my first-ever ACNM annual convention held that year in Detroit, MI. I was eager to start real-world midwifery, so I found myself humbly awed when the wise senior midwife walking beside me gave me these words. She then took both of my hands in hers, and closed her eyes for just a moment. Was she blessing these hands? Or was she stopping to fill my cup to the brim, so I would have what I need to pour out to each of you?

Now, decades later, I’m still looking for answers. How do we fill your cup to the brim? What goes into that elixir, how do we mix it and make it what you need to pour out to your baby?

Start with that important ingredient, love: love of midwifery, love of women, love of knowledge, and love of one another.

Add to it our passion for service to mothers and babies, to families, to women at all ages and stages.

Season it carefully with science and experience.

Blend in a whopping dose of respect for each person and her choices in birth and health.
Not up to the brim yet?

Put in time. Our time with you, working together in a safe space to explore the complex feelings pregnancy brings. Our time spent behind the scenes, honing our skills, generating and reviewing your chart, looking for ways to improve. Let’s not forget our time walking with you through your birth, postpartum and new motherhood.

Now, mix it all up with a shot of good humor, and voilà! Full to the brim!

Please help us fill the cup by naming topics you would like to see us present. Be pioneers! Help us explore new insights, tell a birth story, share a photograph, and stay tuned. We hope to post as often as birthing babies will let us. Please leave a comment, and show us your curiosity. Or write a guest blog entry, if you are so moved.